Callison: No better view for Navy man from Sioux Falls than on USS Constitution

Nov. 11, 2013

John Benson, a South Dakota native and mass communication specialist on the USS Constitution, took this photo of interior communications electrician 2nd Class Stephen Getchell ascending the ship's mainmast during its annual Fourth of July turnaround cruise as part of the Boston Harborfest. / U.S. Navy

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John Benson has viewed Boston from the mast of the oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.

However, it’s when he stands on the USS Constitution’s deck, talking with veterans who served on the ship decades earlier, that he has his best view.

“In the military, you want to serve your country, try and make everyone else around you proud to be an American,” says Benson, a Navy petty officer 3rd class. “You want to do your best work. Talking to veterans, these guys who came before you, gives you a sense of pride. They took their job seriously.

It’s something to look up to, a source of inspiration to me.”

Benson, now 28, joined the Navy on June 15, 2011. His parents, Kevin and Margaret Benson, were living in Vermillion when the second of their three children was born, but he was raised in Sioux Falls.

After graduating from Washington High School in 2003, he majored in communications at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., graduating in 2007. Benson then spent two years with AmeriCorps, a federal program that gives adults the chance to help others.

During his first year in Louisiana, Benson worked with Habitat for Humanity. The next year he spent in Palm Beach, Fla., with a literacy coalition. He then took almost a year to decide what to do next.

“I thought, hey, I’ve always wanted to join the military, and it was the appropriate time,” Benson says. “I had finished AmeriCorps, but I wanted to do something even more.”

The Benson family has a strong tradition of helping others, but when his middle son first brought up entering the military after college, Kevin Benson said he really wasn’t supportive. That changed, and now he’s proud of his son.

“My wife works for the VA, and she has a great appreciation for vets,” Kevin Benson says. In addition, both of John Benson’s grandfathers served in World War II, and an uncle was in the Vietnam War, making John Benson the third generation to serve.

“My dad, I think he thought it was pretty cool” when his grandson enlisted, Kevin Benson said. “He’s still proud he was in the Marines. There’s kind of a camaraderie as far as these guys who have served. How many times do you hear someone say ‘I have your back’? In the business world, it’s kind of lame. In the military, they do.”

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John Benson entered the Navy nuclear program, described as the second-toughest academic program in the country, behind the electrical engineering program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a four-year electrical engineering bachelor’s degree crammed into a year and a half,” he says. “It’s very intense, and the success rate is less than 70 percent.”

He didn’t make it through, but any sting was eased when he was hand-picked as a mass communication specialist on the Constitution. “It’s a fancy way of saying a Navy journalist, but it goes beyond what you would think working at a newspaper, magazine or TV station,” John Benson says.

His office is in a building right next to the Constitution, but his duties take him aboard the ship often. The wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate was commissioned during George Washington’s presidency. She was nicknamed “Old Ironsides” by her early crews since cannon balls would bounce off her hull.

The ship has been rebuilt a number of times over 216 years, John Benson says. Only 8 percent to 10 percent of her is the original, and that is below the waterline. Still, standing on the deck inspires awe, he says.

“It’s hard to believe all these amazing battles that happened on this vessel,” he says. “This is a unique position to have in the Navy. You figure there are about 300,000-some sailors in the Navy, and only a handful will ever visit on the Constitution, and even fewer have the opportunity to serve on her. I can’t believe I’m here doing this job.”

During the summer, when the ship is open eight hours a day six days a week, the Constitution will draw half a million visitors, John Benson says. It now is open six hours a day, four days a week.

Six weeks ago, two veterans who had served on the Constitution in 1945 and 1946 returned. They brought photos of themselves working on the ship, and John Benson photographed them standing at the helm.

“I was listening to their stories of how they lived on the ship way back in the day,” John Benson says. “They were sleeping in their bunks on the berth deck, worried about cockroaches falling from the rafters in their mouths.”

The veterans remembered a continuing, now modified, tradition. Sailors stationed on the Constitution must complete an “up and over,” climbing the mast. John Benson did it twice on his first day. The veterans had climbed to the mast’s fighting top, more than 220 feet above deck, with no harness. Now, the Navy prohibits climbing more than 70 feet.

“It’s more or less ‘welcome aboard, here’s your mentor and you’re going to do your up and overs today,’ ” he says. “It is the best view of Boston you can get, especially from the yardarm on the main mast.”

The Constitution will be closed today while John Benson and fellow sailors take part one way or another in a Veterans Day parade. It is a good day, he says, to thank any veteran you meet. It also is a good time to considering entering the military.

“I’d say go for it,” John Benson says. “It’s one of the best decisions you’re going to make. Life is only so long. Don’t wait forever like I did.”